


It's Getting Harder and Harder to Breathe

by I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Tag, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 13:50:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3694661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own/pseuds/I_have_a_Mycroft_of_my_very_own
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“God, I’m so happy you’re alive.”</p><p>“I know, babe, I know."</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Getting Harder and Harder to Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> I've finally jumped on the Hawaii Five 0 train. And oh God, what a ride it is. These bois, man. I couldn't get this episode out of my head, and the fact that they didn't know what Danny was exposed to outside of a biological weapon. So decontamination and things would have had to have been done cos otherwise the paramedics could have been exposed, and the doctors at the hospital, and yeah I just went a bit crazy.

Steve couldn’t tell what was worse. He just couldn’t. Watching his friends dying in combat or not watching them die at all, but knowing they were dying. He just couldn’t tell. He thought maybe it was harder not watching them die, because there he was _useless!_ He was useless for the ones in combat too, but at least then he could _shoot the sons of bitches who took down his friends!_ But here, he was useless.

“He’s seizing.” Steve listened as the first responders struggled to get Danny through the decontamination process. Steve listened through the wall of their decontamination shower, his heart pounding in his chest.

“Right. Get him in the ambulance. Have the doctors on standby!” he heard someone bark, and he rushed through the rest of his decontamination. He was re-clothed just in time to catch the ambulance with Danny. Who was breathing through a mask, and was out cold. Danny seized in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, and again just as they arrived. Steve’s heart ached and his breathing was painful, but he knew, he _knew_ it had nothing to do with Sarin, and everything to do with the fact that _Danny was dying!_

The doctors rushed Danny off through doors that Steve couldn’t follow him through, they took Danny into a place where Steve could not be Danny’s back up, where Steve’s presence would never be enough to keep Danny safe. And Steve held himself up only by the knowledge that he was a Seal, and Seals don’t break down crying in the middle of hospitals. That’s just not what Seals _do!_

* * *

 

 

No news was good news, and Steve wanted to strangle whoever said that, because clearly, _clearly_ they were not the one doing the waiting. Clearly they were not the one stuck in another room while their friend _died,_ clearly they were not the one forced to be _helpless_ as Danno, Danny, Daniel Williams _died._ Clearly they’d never heard Danny laugh, and they’d never seen him smile, and they’d never heard him rant, seen that beautiful brain of his in action as his mouth spat out rant after rant, and never seen those expressive hands at work. Clearly whoever said that no news was good news had _never, ever_ been forced to _do nothing_ as Daniel Williams _died_.

It took everything Steve had not to just fall boneless to the ground, everything he had to keep himself on his feet, keep himself moving. It took everything he had to keep going, because he had to be strong now, he had to be strong for Danny. There was a loud cry through the doors Danny had been whisked through, and Steve would know his partner’s pain, he would always know the sound.

_“I don’t want to die. Steve. Steve. I don’t. I don’t. I don’t. Don’t let me die. Please.”_

Steve’s eyes burned as he fought off the memory, Danny propped against that wall, so barely able to breathe as they all waited for help to come.

_Bio-hazard_ _. Bio-hazard._

_And everything went out the door. Every hope of a quick trip in the ambulance to the hospital. Every hope of immediate relief for his friend. Every hope went out the door, and all Steve could think of was having to tell Gracie her Danno was dead._

“Oh God!” Steve forced himself to breathe, forced himself to shake off the memories. “Breathe, you son a bitch! _Danny_ is the one dying! _Danny_ is the one with a nerve agent targeting his respiratory system. _Danny_ is the one who has to fight just to breathe. So you breathe, you son of a bitch, because you have no right to be like this!” he muttered to himself, angry with himself.

* * *

It seemed like hours had passed before Jenna’s call came in, and Steve doesn’t know what came over him, but he ran. Barging through the doors and into the room where the doctors were doing all they could for his friend, all they could while flying blind. And Danny was seizing! _Again_. And Steve doesn’t remember doing it, but he whistled loudly and yelled “Sarin. It’s Sarin!” before he was rushed from the room as chaos descended.

* * *

And suddenly everything was alright. Everything. And Steve felt the weight lift from his shoulders, and he felt like he could breathe again. And when he saw Danny again, the man wasn’t even hooked up on oxygen, he couldn’t believe it. Not after everything. He couldn’t believe it, because  _Danny had been dying, couldn’t breathe, was dying before Steve’s eyes, a_ nd now, now he was breathing and smiling, and gushing about Grace. And Steve couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t. It just seemed so anticlimactic, and Steve was no stranger to anti-climax, he’s not, but this…? This just didn’t feel right. It was like he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

* * *

It was midnight when they finally got all the shit with Sang Min sorted out, Steve wrangled Danny into the Camaro and drove them both back to his place, where he settled Danny into the guest room and was just about to head off to bed when Danny called him back, sitting up in bed.

“Babe?” Steve froze with his hand on the doorknob.

“Yeah?” 

“C’mere.” Danny murmured, Steve held back a sigh and made his way to his friend, sitting on the edge of the bed. “You’ve been staring at me with big, worried, Super Seal eyes since I got to the Palace. Talk to me, c’mon.” Steve shook his head, he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because if he opened his mouth, the words would never stop pouring out, like a dam bursting, they’d form a tsunami and drown all in their path, and he couldn’t. “C’mon, babe.”

“No.” and he hadn’t meant to say it, hadn’t meant to say anything, because No was his word forever associated with Danny and danger now. No was his word. Because Danny and danger shouldn’t ever, _ever,_ **_ever_** be put together, but they would be, and he knew they would be, because Danny was a cop, and Danny was _his_ cop, _his_ partner. Danny was his best friend, and no one got close to Steve without paying some price.

“Steven. Stop being a baby. Talk to me.”

“No.” Steve looked at Danny, and he felt his eyes start to burn, and he wasn’t sure what face he was making right now, but whatever it was, it had Danny frowning.

“Steve?” and the dam broke.

“I thought you were hit. I did. I did. I thought you were hit, and all I could think about was stopping the bleeding, but there wasn’t any. _There wasn’t any_! You weren’t bleeding. You weren’t breathing. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t think. I didn’t get it. And then Jenna was running past, and all I could think was ‘no more! Not another one! Danny is more than enough! No more’ and so I went with her, needed to be her backup. And everything became so much worse! ‘We need to get Danny to a hospital’ she was saying, but I knew, I knew and she knew, and we both knew that there was no way you were getting to the hospital in any definition of the word ‘immediately’. And you… you… kept looking me in the eye, kept eye contact with me, even as your entire body convulsed with your need for oxygen, oxygen you just weren’t getting. And I couldn’t. You… you begged me not to let you die. Danny. You begged me. Told me you didn’t want to die. And there was _nothing I could do!_ And I was hopeless! So utterly pathetic. You were dying before my eyes, and I could do nothing.” The tears streamed down his face, and he couldn’t stop them, like he couldn’t stop the words tumbling from his lips. Danny reached forward and tugged Steve towards him, and Steve went without a fight. Resting his head against Danny’s chest and listening to Danny’s strong, continuous, _existent_ heartbeat.

“I honestly don’t remember any of that, babe. And I’m sorry for putting everything on you. None of it was your fault.”

“We nearly lost you.” Steve whispered, voice cracking.

“I know, babe. But you didn’t.” Steve smiled at the truth, Danny was here, and Danny was alive. They had tomorrow. “I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault either.”

“Let’s blame Wo Fat, and put this all behind us, shall we?” Steve nodded, even though he knew he would never get the image of Danny choking, gasping, convulsing, _dying_ out of his head, not as long as he lived.

“When they took you through those doors away from me, I thought… God, Danny, I thought that was the last time I was ever going to see you alive.” He hadn’t meant to admit that, hadn’t meant to admit that at all, but he couldn’t keep the words in.

“I’m sorry. No, I know it’s not my fault, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling sad and guilty. If I… If I had died, Steve, if I had died, my last memory would have been you taking my vest off because you thought I’d been shot, and… and this pain in my chest. But that’s it. That’s all I remember until the antidote started working. This… this whole thing was harder on all of you, than it was on me. So, yeah, I’m sorry.” Steve shook his head and held tighter to Danny, refusing to let go.

“God, I’m so happy you’re alive.”

“I know, babe, I know."


End file.
